Investors and analysts see every iPhone that Apple isn’t selling right now as potentially a more-expensive iPhone it will sell in the holiday season, so it would take a huge miss to shift attention from the next shiny new Apple gadget.

While everyone’s attention is on the new iPhone, Apple will avoid any mention of that device today ahead of an expected launch event in September. Instead, expect CEO Tim Cook to focus on the launches he revealed at WWDC last month, including the HomePod speaker (which goes on sale in December), early efforts in augmented reality and other new efforts.

Apple’s forecast for the quarter disappointed, at $43.5 billion to $45.5 billion. When it delivered that projection three months ago, analysts’ average forecast was completely about that range, but that has come down since.

One interesting thing to listen for is Apple’s adoption of new revenue-recognition rules. The company sneakily pushed back adoption of the new rules with a slight change in an SEC filing that we spotted yesterday. These new rules will have varying effects and could touch on several parts of Apple’s business, so any color on why they pushed adoption back (Apple officially declined to comment yesterday) or how it will affect their recognition of revenue would be big.

Apple stock has kinda been treading water since the last earnings report, up 2.4% in the past three months, which is underperforming both the S&P and the Dow. IMO, that is investors just waiting for that new iPhone reveal.

On the new iPhone, media and financial analyst reports suggest Apple will launch a new high-end phone with new bells and whistles that will push the price tag to $1,000 or more. While consumers may balk at that price, analysts are drooling about all the money it could bring in for Apple, as its dedicated fans pony up a G or more for their new gadgets.

A quarterly warning from me – You will see a lot of people talking about Apple’s cash stash, quoting it as more than $250 billion and comparing it to stuff like the valuation of all major pro sports teams, etc. However, that number does not take debt into account, and Apple has racked up billions in debt to pay off investors instead of paying taxes to get that cash back to the U.S., so its rather disingenuous.

Apple’s guidance for its fiscal fourth quarter seems pretty in line with Wall Street estimates, so this may give more credence to the view that the next iPhone 8 will not be out until October. Apple is guiding to a fourth quarter revenue range of $49 billion to $52 billion, and FactSet has consensus at $49.2 billion.

Cook’s quote in earnings release is a preview of what we’re likely to hear from him on call: Services revenue is great, WWDC wrap-up.

“With revenue up 7 percent year-over-year, we’re happy to report our third consecutive quarter of accelerating growth and an all-time quarterly record for Services revenue,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We hosted an incredibly successful Worldwide Developers Conference in June, and we’re very excited about the advances in iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS coming this fall.”

Wonder if the iPad was boosted by heftier sales with the new iPad Pro, a higher priced iPad that some of us mocked because it also offered a pencil, which was seemingly against Steve Jobs’s initial intentions.

Think iPad Pro has to be a big part of the revival for iPad – Apple has really been pushing it as a laptop replacement and good for business, and it must have paid off somewhere. Maybe one of their enterprise partnerships, which include IBM and Cisco and many others, finally came through there.

Analysts checking in, saying guidance suggests iPhone will be launched by end of fiscal year. From RBC analyst Amit Daryanani:

“this could suggest that iPhone units will be up q/q (by ~10%) implying launch timing could be end of September and AAPL has enough units to have a strong launch – question may be when does mass availability occur.”

Cook says this fall will be very exciting with lots of new software upgrades mentioned at WWDC, including a more intelligent and natural Siri. Other more intelligent products will also include the Apple Watch, with Apple Watch 0S 4.0

As Jeremy predicted, Cook hyped up the new Home Pod. “We can’t wait to deliver all these powerful innovations in the months to come,” Cook said, adding that “we might” have some others to share, hint hint, new iPhone?

Interesting that Apple didn’t give an update on Apple Music subscriptions after Spotify noted that paying customer increased 10 million in the past quarter for its Apple Music rival, Spotify now at 60 million total.

He claimed that it grew in constant currency by 6%, while in real money it fell 10%. Maybe he is stripping out Hong Kong? This is the second straight quarter that he’s blamed Hong Kong weakness for much of the China region decline.

Cook says Hong Kong is what dragged down greater China, but said that he thinks Apple is mostly over that. “What we see in the mainland is much more encouraging,” he said. Apple revenue in China was down 10%, but he seems to be saying that overall, in China (excluding Hong Kong) sales were up.

He needs to be much more blatant about how he’s coming up with these numbers, because to put out numbers that show a 10% reduction year over year and 25% decline sequentially in China region and then claim that they’re growing there smells fiiiiiishy

Analyst asks about iPhone upgrades and whether the current rate of upgrade is sustainable. “It is a function of many, many things,” Cook said, noting that size, age, upgrade plans in various parts of the world all play a role “It’s not a simple thing that you can apply a set formula to.” Between upgraders and switchers, and first time buyers, there is a lot of opportunities he said.

It is worth noting that Cook did not say anything about Toni Sacconaghi’s question about Apple TV. He mentioned Apple Music for original content and said that autonomous systems are the mother of all AI projects, not necessarily just for cars.

Apple CFO says that one reason services business and App Store is growing so much is because Apple has made it easier to buy apps. The number of paying accounts is growing because it is easier to pay and the quality of content is growing, he says.

My general takeaways: The iPad business is suddenly relevant again, forecast doesn’t seem to show concern for iPhone launch, impressive profit and revenue as always for this company. Looking forward to record high stock prices tomorrow, as shares are currently at $159.59, up 6.5% from the close.

Thanks for joining us, everyone! Check back for more on Apple later this evening and tomorrow at marketwatch.com and on our apps, and come back tomorrow to join Claudia Assis and I as we live-blog Tesla’s earnings report.

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